Capital humain et croissance économique : une revue de la littérature

Abstract

Human Capital and Economic Growth, by Kinvi D.A. Logossah. This paper sets out to review the theory of human capital while examining its empirical validity. It shows that the traditional hypothesis whereby education is an investment that increases individual efficiency and thus productivity and gains has been enlarged by various criticisms such as filter models, theories of labour market heterogeneousness, the efficient wages model, and domination, discrimination and patriarchate hypotheses. Therefore, although the level of education might appear to be a reliable measurement of the qualification level (orthodox model), it could also be regarded as an indicator of potential productivity (filter model). Moreover, other factors besides education influence productivity and individual gains. These are mainly seniority and experience and, more generally, the characteristics of the labour demand (theories of labour market heterogeneousness, the efficient wages model, and domination, discrimination and patriarchate theories). The analysis of human capital continues and is taking diverse routes. It has been greatly enhanced by recent studies on endogenous growth.